20 come back for you, as I promised you I would on that day when I went forth into the world to seek my for- tune." ((I have been sitting here on the sob, hobbing," said Ivy, simply. "You will-go with me?" he askedo She stood, proud and erect. Her eyes shone. The morning sun, stream- ing through the window at her back, framed her head in a golden halo "To the end of the world," she said, simply. "My woman!" cried Chester, taking her in his arms. AS she busied herself packing a suit- .n. case, he told her of himself. " Of " h O d " I ' course, e saI, m not a Rockefeller, but I guess I can at least support you in the style to which you've been accustomed here. By the way, w horn did you marry? " " s T o " O d I 0 I am ItUS, sal vy, SImp y. "Sam Titus, the blacksmith!" ex- . . SONNET SEQUINS I W ith the first whimper of impatient verhs, And the deep baying proper to their nouns, The cerebral rising of a verse perturhs My fancy like the bell-cry of the hounds. Strange syllables in bastard consequence Worry the nib that joins them to the page, And thoughts congenial with imperfect tense Bring youth in surfeit back to crabbed age. Something as fast or loose upon the heart Writes but the simple crisis in these lines; Where is the fool denies the sullen smart Susceptible to me,tric anodynes? Or the crass disbeliever better dead Because no poetry is in his head? III Yet in its season, as a gift of gods, When spring commends the trellis to the vine, And farmers busy turning up the clods Account the grape which later goes for wine, The back of an old envelope comes out, An invitation to be answered when? And like the rising of gregarious trout The sinuous phrase slips idly from the pen. o marvellous sound and rapture in ou r VOIce, Recorded here with no apparent strain, Such lovely idiom might be the choice Of poets groaning on their beds of pain; But safe in the breast pocket of no hard These lines lie written on a calling card. ;f I Q : \ L., '.." II · ",. () SEPTEMDER I 2. 1 .3 1 claimed Chester . "Well, that's a good one. I'm a blacksmith, too." I vy dropped the suitcase. "You're a-what?" she faltered. "I'm a blacksmith," said Chester, cheerily. Sam Titus played on the village base- ball nine and several bats stood in a corner behind the stove. Quietly, Ivy selected one of the larger of these, and advanced on Chester. " y ?" h O d 0 ou are, are you 0 s e sal , SIm- ply. -FRANK SULLIVAN II \\1 ords that we cripple in our daily speech, Given at random and repaid in kind, In cool soliloquies lie each to each Beyond the labial anchorage of the mind. A cup of coffee and the homing thrush, Drunk in the morning or surprised at eve, Confuse the brain with pent poetic flush And intimations we shall not achieve. The sonnet bubbling of a fine excess, Beating its rhythm to our Sunday walk., Dies inarticulate as no and yes Regain the pri vilege of insolvent talk. Say we are sorry, and our songs unsung, And poems slowly dying on the tongue. IV Thoughts murmured on the road to somewhere else: A concertina in the rue du Bac, The landward marshes and the seaward smells, The world beyond a ship or down a track. . . Things we remember and have like forgot, For times and places out of mind and purse, In quiet candor of the ravelling knot Surrender us these vestiges of verse. Redemption, this, from all our trivial sins, And ecstasy not born of reading Keats; [he pulse that quickens where the ink begins Has known a thousand victories and defeats. But he who whistles at such penny trade Shall war a<:; l\rthur with enchanted blade. V None of it gold but counts ,the stun of this: Our small contractions with a pen of fire; l""he good that lasted out of Dido's kiss Has majored centuries in Virgil's lyre. Feeling the rain, we rhyme our desperate mark Across the paper as a child at play Orders his animals about the ark, Not knowing other children do that way. l\nd to the last the specious little pile Of what might turn a Milton in his grave Conspires to cheer its author the slow while He meditates on when to burn or save. Dear curious litanies to praise the star, And lift us out of what we really are! -DA VID MCCORD .^ 03 /" ." ' . ' :: ,.: .H \. \P ..